Published on Monday, February 01, 2010
By LA Daily News Staff Writer
The piano player died Sunday ... but the party went on.
Viola Barton, who would have turned 108 in March, was last seen by friends Saturday morning, sitting at the ivory keys and practicing "Happy Birthday." She planned to play the ditty at a Monday afternoon birthday party for her best friend, Florence Tuckman, who was turning 107.
She never got the chance.
"Viola passed Sunday morning," Patty Schwade, social director of the Elms Convalescent Hospital in Glendale, told me as I walked in Monday to visit the girls.
There was no sorrow in the room, no tearful Florence crying over her friend's untimely death. They were too close for that.
Viola lived a long, happy life, and there was no pain at the end, Florence said. What more could you ask for?
So let's cut the cake, blow out the candles, and have a party. For both of them.
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